Just when you think you're out, just when you think the season is done, QPR pull you back in again and breathe fresh life into their campaign - Rob Dickie's late winner at Kenilworth Road a potential defining moment for this team.
And so it came to pass that having turned down multiple ‘winnable’ opportunities to cement and improve their position of fourth in the Championship, Queens Park Rangers then did that thing so typical of them and won one of the difficult away games few had given them a prayer in to climb back towards the division's summit just when you least expected it.
From an unbeaten run on the road of six games that included five wins over Christmas, Rangers had lost four away from home without scoring a goal. Play as they had in defeat at Peterborough, Barnsley, Millwall or Blackburn, or in last week’s soul-sapping home loss to a mediocre Cardiff City, and there was more chance of securing a Grindr date in Riyadh than seeing a QPR victory in this high noon showdown at Kenilworth Road. Off field incidents in the first meeting back in November guaranteed a white-hot atmosphere and heavy police presence, and the visiting players had to abandon their coach and pick their way through that on the way into this most unique of old-school stadiums. On the field only free-scoring league leaders Fulham have picked up more points since the turn of the year than Luton — nine wins in 13 league games since the decorations came down. It didn’t immediately jump off the coupon as an away win.
That was the narrative, and for a good chunk of the morning everything seemed to be sticking to that script — a real ‘what are we doing here?’ experience for the 1,000 odd silly sods (un)lucky enough to secure the limited allocation in the hovel behind the goal. Luton manager Nathan Jones — skinny jeans, Stone Island jacket, chip on his shoulder you could hide The Red October in — favours the same back three and wing-back set up that QPR have used for the last year or so, but in Cameron Jerome and Elijah Adebayo he had a far more physical and effective forward line than Rangers’ makeshift pairing of Andre Gray and Ilias Chair. Their midfield three of Jordan Clark, Pelly Ruddock-Mpanzu (then Henri Lansbury thanks to an early injury) and particularly Allan Campbell were more dynamic and mobile than their opposite numbers and, crucially, played a good 15 yards higher up the pitch. They went long, and diagonal, unashamedly early, and then worked off the front two to hold possession and play their football in a threatening part of the pitch.
There’d been a couple of early sighters — one wild and over the bar, the other dribbling along the ground straight to David Marshall, although as we’re discovering you can never take anything for granted with the veteran Scottish goalkeeper — from Campbell in the opening stages. One had come from Jeff Hendrick falling asleep in midfield and allowing a man to run off the back of him unchecked, and when the Newcastle loanee then lost possession in his own half for the umpteenth time on the afternoon Luton did get the ball in the net through Adebayo running through one-on-one with the goalkeeper. A linesman’s flag and marginal offside call rescued Rangers, and made an absolute mug of a pound-shop Peaky Blinders wannabe in the executive boxes who’d made the rookie mistake of failing to make sure the goal was legit before giving it large to the away end. If you are going to expose your tiny willy in front of a large group of people, it is always best to double check first. Of course, there is always the option not to be such a monstrous helmet in the first place, but I think that ship sailed when he picked out that outfit for the day.
Such was our viewpoint, akin to watching the game peering over the top of a giant hole in the ground, I actually thought until this morning that Campbell had a second goal ruled out by the flag shortly afterwards. A cross to the back post found Adebayo free, Marshall made a terrific save, and Campbell nodded into the empty net but was offside. As it turns out he’d missed an open goal from half a yard, and was probably grateful for the flag. The confines of Kenilworth Road shafted the same linesman in another incident I can never recall seeing the likes of before when a channel ball down the line bounced behind him as he ran off, caught between the back of his calf and his thigh, stopped dead and stayed in play — panicked, he flagged that it had gone out for a throw in, which it obviously never had and should have been a drop ball. A minor incident, of no consequence, really quite funny in its way, treated as the greatest injustice ever inflicted on mankind by the Luton manager further up the touchline. Head in hands, then in the air, then back on his head, bent double, then leaning back, pleading, begging, screaming, incandescent with rage - over a throw in midway inside the QPR half that should have been a drop ball. Really rather mad.
A goal was absolutely, definitely coming, though when it did arrive it was highly preventable. Marshall, at fault for the winner at Blackburn and Cardiff’s equaliser last week, kept up his sad recent goal-a-game average by allowing the tamest of speculative efforts from Cameron Jerome to squeeze between his gloves and over the line from long range. From debating whether Seny Dieng would regain his place post AFCON, to now wondering whether he might be able to play on one leg. QPR fully justified in wondering why Jordan Clark’s basketball-style control in the build up — hand and arm raised high above his head and batting his miscontrol back down to himself — was waved as play-on, but really had everything going for them to make that as irrelevant as the lino’s earlier faux pas. Before half time a ball fell to the impressive Clark in a great spot in front of goal and only a block first by his own man, and then secondly, brilliantly and bravely, by Jimmy Dunne prevented that being two nil there and then.
QPR were slightly better than they had been in other recent away games. Andre Gray, playing against the club at which he made his name having stepped up from non-league, at least looked interested in being here and willing to move around — his excellent approach work on 11 minutes got Lee Wallace in on an overlap down the left (often a sign that we’re going to be able to do bits in attack in a game) and he should maybe have done a bit more than just win the first corner of the game which Johansen wasted. Soon Chair was flicking Wallace in for a second attempt and with this much deeper cross Rangers were able to threaten through Odubajo at the far post, cutting in on his left foot and testing keeper James Shea down in the bottom corner. Odubajo, since his personal nadir at Barnsley, continued his recent decent form in this game.
Jeff Hendrick’s dramatic penalty appeal as we entered first half stoppage time received the contempt it deserved from referee Josh Smith, but it was at least an example of a QPR midfielder getting up in support of, and running beyond, the strikers. Once again here the problem felt like Rangers were too deep, midfield sitting right on top of the defence, and unable to get out and play football higher up the field in dangerous areas. Despite Johansen and Hendrick rarely crossing the halfway line, and again really feeling like they were trying to do the same job a lot of the time, Sam Field still seemed overworked as the actual sitting, defensive midfielder. The worst of both worlds. Certainly when you compare them to the purposeful, attack-minded central three in the Luton team it was night and day, chalk and cheese, and as the eye-rolling sideways and backwards passing started to once again manifest at 1-0 down with time ticking down to half time, so the away end really started to turn and get a bit aggy with players and manager for the first time this season. Frustration starting to manifest, Ilias Chair was perhaps fortunate to only see yellow for swinging out at Tom Lockyer as the half time whistle went — his attempt to disappear down the tunnel pretty transparent, Smith’s yellow card perhaps a little generous.
So far, so predictable. The worst thing about it was another 45 minutes lay in wait. A more obvious 2-0 home win you’ll never see as long as you live. Straight away after the restart Campbell walked into acres of space on the edge of the penalty area and was teed up for a clear shot at goal which he hit straight at Marshall — not a bad tactic, perhaps, but this time the keeper beat the ball back into play. That really should have been the game breaker.
Instead, QPR started to play. Odubajo got going down the right, overlapping and delivering superb service from wide, as Bree and co had done from the same part of the pitch in the first half. The midfield finally stopped treating the halfway line as a forcefield, and got across it every now and again. This was turbo-charged later in the game when Luke Amos came off the bench, played 20 yards further up the pitch than any of the other midfielders have for weeks, snapped a couple of home players who’d had everything their own way for far too long on the afternoon (yellow carded for one meaty hit, but I actually didn’t mind it in this context and thought we could have done with a bit more of that a bit earlier), and generally just looked a busy, lively and effective pain in the arse for the opponent — no more easy, unchallenged, pick-your-spot long diagonal balls out from their back three any more, with Amos snapping around at the heels. We have scored four goals from central midfield this year and despite his lack of gametime, Amos has three of those. You could see why here.
The game was level by the time he came on. Hendrick fed a ball into Gray on the corner of the penalty area, and ran beyond him to take defenders away and provide an option in the box. We do this so seldom at the moment it’s heartbreaking, and the effect it can have was shown here. Now isolated with Gray, home skipper Kal Naismith lunged in foolishly once allowing himself to be turned and then - off balance and panicking - chucked himself into an absolute fool’s errand for the most obvious penalty you’ll ever see. Gray hasn’t scored one of these outside a shoot-out for five years, since he was playing for Burnley, but you’d never know that from the two step run up and faultless finish into the top corner.
Game on. Not only on, but heading more and more in QPR’s direction with each passing substitution. The addition of Charlie Austin to support Gray, Luke Amos to be everything the other midfielders weren’t, and Chris Willock whose injury-related absence had raised plenty of eyebrows to start with, turned the screws on the home side. That, and QPR taking more points from losing positions than any other team in the division during Warbs Warburton’s reign, perhaps one in the eye for critics who chuck around "no plan B” when talking about a manager who has transformed Rangers’ fortunes since he arrived here.
I was surprised how far and fast Luton faded from the game to be honest with you. Clearly and obviously the better side in the first half, with a goal lead that should have been more, at home, on a great run of form and full of confidence, they just sort of slipped quietly away into the night. Their attack badly hamstrung by Adebayo’s chronic inability to stay onside. Obviously a good player, with enormous potential, 13 goals already this season, far better than anything we’ve got in attack, he’s been attracting interest from upstairs, and rightly so — but he’ll need to sell up and move out of Macauley Bonne’s old gaff in Offsideville if he's to go further and higher than this. Their second half subs — Harry Cornick and the artist formerly known as Robert Snodgrass — made them worse to the same degree Rangers’ had improved them. More of a problem to the Hatters than anything the fourth official was doing, but Jones, constantly teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown, devoted 90% of his attention and energy to haranguing James Linington all the same. Over in the conservatory showroom, a Harry Potter look-a-like took the thoroughly unwise decision to get up and have some sort of weird meltdown in the general direction of the away end. He, too, setting himself up as a prize pig on market day for there was to be another twist in this tale yet, and he needn’t think that the outer-body-experience celebrations in an away end that dissolved into an anarchic chaos the second the ball hit the net meant we didn’t notice him slinking off and quietly sliding the patio door closed behind him before Luton had kicked off for a third and final time on the afternoon. Bye mate, take care.
The winning goal came from a corner - Naismith, again, wild and rash in hacking a horrible clearance high and mightily wide behind his own goal. On the long list of QPR issues in recent weeks had been finding a taker for these — only David Marshall is yet to have a go, and I’d back him to do a better job than Yoann Barbet. Barbet might be a better goalkeeper as well. With the French centre back safely back on the near post, Chris Willock decided to have a go — a winger, crossing a deadball, burn the fucking witch. The delivery was a horror from the moment it left his boot — the sort of devilish, nasty, whipped ball that goalkeepers see coming towards them in nightmares that jerk them awake as a sweaty mess at three in the morning. You couldn’t see a lot from where we were standing, but the arc and trajectory on this brought it right towards us, and three of the faithful who travel with me and improve my life through their mere existence said "it’s in” in unison. It was in immediately, it was in all the way, it was in from the moment he kicked it. It was in. It was written. From a crowd at the near post the ball skimmed off Rob Dickie’s shoulder and landed satisfyingly in the corner of the net nearest to us. Goalkeeper Shea, blocked into his net by an obviously offside Luke Amos, couldn’t do a thing about it. The linesman’s failure to spot this only adds comedy to the glorious, euphoria of it all. If anything, I wish he’d been further offside. Behind the goal, amidst the collapse of society, a full size, old school tin rubbish bin was launched into the air like a Cold war Soviet spacecraft. Dickie’s fifth of the season, but first in 33 games going back to late August. Hook it to my veins. Just when you’re out, they drag you back in again. These are the moments, these are the moments, we missed so dearly in lockdown. You simply have to be there.
Any expected siege in five minutes of time added on never materialised. Lee Wallace was booked for clock-running over a throw in, but really QPR were able to see out the stoppage time skillfully and professionally — Willock, Odubajo and Johansen to the fore, keeping the ball high up the pitch, running the clock through clever triangles and possession retention rather than shithousing and time wasting. A round of applause for the grown-ups. Over in the creche, several grown men who’d deemed it appropriate to hang over the advertising hoardings and scream threats and abuse at Jimmy Dunne while he was off the field receiving treatment for a first half injury got it back in spades as the surely soon-to-be Irish international set off on a fist-pumping lap of honour down the touchline on the first peep of the full time whistle. Get that into you.
Jones’ hysterical over-reaction at full time was a work of fucking art. His assertion that although Adebayo’s first half goal was offside the linesman can’t possibly see it’s offside and therefore shouldn’t have flagged it offside even though it is offside went through the looking glass so far even Alice couldn’t be arsed to follow him. Better things to do with her time. The barbed comment about our wild celebrations, from a man who once beat his chest so hard I thought he was going to fracture his own ribs after grinding out a 0-0 for Stoke City against one of the worst QPR teams in living memory, and was more recently seen scaling the away end of the Liberty Stadium after a 1-0 victory against sixteenth-placed Swansea like some tiny, hairless, diecast Hornby model of King Kong, pure ironic genius. Get this man his own Netflix series.
The temptation is to use words like ‘huge’, ‘massive’, ‘crucial’. The moment the whole season turned back around. QPR, just when they look spent and gone in that Cardiff game, take a big breath, bite down on the mouth guard, get up off the canvas, and make a strong statement that they’re still in this fight. You say that about a man like Stuart Pearce? He’s got to go to Middlesbrough and get something etc etc. We’ll only know what any of it means — the last minute winner at Bristol City, the Charlie Austin goal against West Brom, this spirited Kenilworth Road recovery for which the players and manager deserve enormous credit — when it’s set in the context of the table in the first week of May. Beating a rival away - in the form they’re in, the form we’re in, and after that first half performance — felt super important for players, staff and supporters.
For now though, for me, it was just nice to see them win again after a tough month on the road for the die-hards. Just to see us get on the front foot a little bit, play the ball forwards, get up in support of the strikers, deliver a few crosses, pose a bit of a threat. It was only really for the last half an hour, and especially once Amos and Willock had come on, but it was something to grab onto and enjoy, and after last week’s horribly deflating defeat against Cardiff that was really all I was looking for here. I feel like our own version of Man Utd’s "lads, it’s Tottenham” could be "lads, it’s the Championship” — none of these teams are that good, go and express yourselves a bit, like you did for the whole of 2021.
Shackles off, winning goal scored, three points bagged, supposedly crisis-riddled and done-for-the-season Queens Park Rangers go back up to fourth in the table. Kiss my face.
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Luton: Shea 5; Bree 7, Burke 6, Lockyer 6, Naismith 4, Bell 6; Mpanzu 7 (Lansbury 15, 6), Clark 7 (Snodgrass 81, -), Campbell 7; Jerome 7 (Cornick 74, 5), Adebayo 6
Subs not used: Potts, Berry, Isted, Onyedinma
Goals: Jerome 37 (assisted Campbell)
QPR: Marshall 4; Odubajo 7, Dickie 6, Dunne 7, Barbet 6, Wallace 6; Field 7, Johansen 6, Hendrick 5 (Amos 74, 7); Chair 5 (Austin 60, 6), Gray 7 (Willock 78, 7)
Subs not used: McCallum, Dozzell, Adomah, Mahoney
Goals: Gray 55 (penalty won Gray), Dickie 83 (assisted Willock)
Bookings: Chair 45 +6 (unsporting), Amos 87 (foul), Wallace 90+5 (time wasting)
QPR Star Man — Andre Gray 7 Looked much more ‘in the mood’, shall we say, than some of his recent no-shows, even in the first half when the performance level of the team was poor and the service was mostly long ball down the field. Won and scored the game-changing penalty with a combination of endeavour and skill. Run close by Odubajo and Field who are the two players who have managed to play consistently well over the last few games when their team mates have struggled.
Referee — Josh Smith (Lincolnshire) 5 Much like Blackpool away I came away reasonably impressed with his overall game management and how he handled a potentially difficult game, but there were too many incorrect decisions for a high mark. Luton’s first goal should be disallowed for a hand ball, our winning goal is pretty obviously offside with Luke Amos blocking the goalkeeper — as at Bloomfield Road, referee let down by a poor linesman call there. I thought he got the Ilias Chair incident about right, though plenty of referees would have sent him off there and the QPR man was dumb for giving the referee a decision to make when the half time whistle had already gone.
Attendance 10,073 (1,000 QPR approx.) A game that’s loomed large on the horizon since the trouble at the first one but, actually, seemed to pass off without major incident and with a much better police operation and plan than had been the case at Loftus Road. From the left hand side of the away end it felt like a great atmosphere in the ground, and great fun watching a couple of numpties make absolute pillocks of themselves in the corporate boxes at various points before having to take the long, defeated walk away from the QPR fans at the end.
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